Tackling the demon bolt...

ct2012

I just broke these SOBs loose last night, after about a 3 week project trying to get them off. Being in PA and dealing with salt, I knew it wasn't going to be fun, but luckily the Z has become my project car so I had nothing but time over the winter. For those planning to tackle this, here are the lessons I learned:

- soak them in PB Blaster (and I mean, soak them) over an extended period and let it do some of the work for you. I doused them pretty much every night for about 2 weeks. My wife is pissed because the entire garage now reeks of PB Blaster, but oh well.
- use a joint to make sure you're sitting flush on the bolts. I started off going straight in on the passenger side thinking it was flush, and ended up rounding the bolt almost completely off when the deep socket slipped off. Which brings me to...
- skip the deep sockets and go right for bolt extractors, at least for the demon bolts. I picked up a set from Harbor Freight for $20 and they saved me. Not only did it grip the rounded off passenger bolt, but with the low profile I was able to slip it behind the steering column on the drivers side, then attach a joint to it, and not worry about moving the column around. The caveat: since I'm replacing the bolts anyways I wasn't worried about destroying them, but using an extractor from the start on the drivers side bolt popped it off with no damage.

I'm not going to lie - I wish I had recorded the sound it made when they broke loose because I would listen to it every day... such a satisfying metallic "CRACK" followed by the bolt finally turning. Planning on framing the rounded off, partially destroyed passenger side bolt for the garage as a trophy.

Oh, and I also had 2 glasses of bourbon while taking them off, to which I primarily attribute my success.

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